Ten Years Of Legalization Has Cut Portugal’s Drug Abuse Rate In Half

Time to trade swords for plowshares in the War on Drugs? Forbes writes:

Drug warriors often contend that drug use would skyrocket if we were to legalize or decriminalize drugs in the United States. Fortunately, we have a real-world example of the actual effects of ending the violent, expensive War on Drugs and replacing it with a system of treatment for problem users and addicts.

Ten years ago, Portugal decriminalized all drugs. One decade after this unprecedented experiment, drug abuse is down by half.

“There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,” said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.

The number of addicts considered “problematic” — those who repeatedly use “hard” drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.

The real question is, out of the picture featured for this article, what would YOU take?

The Baffler

I’ll stick with pot.

Alex669

The weed, of course.

Server

The mushrooms, pot, and the blotter acid, if I’m correct in recognizing one of those things. And then I’d eat that piece of chocolate in the middle.

Kod3sign

Yeah, but a fair proportion of the fall in numbers would surely have something to do with people being a lot more educated about drugs in the last 10 years

Iconoclast1

It’s such a telling sign that a demon is their logo.

I vote no. We ALL know what befalls the followers of satan.

The Baffler

Utter victory when Satan brings the deceiver to Justice, and Hell is brought to Earth for all time?

http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

now that’s an iconoclastic one
maybe it’s a disinfo logo psyop
maybe it’s actually Jebus disguised as a demon
to psyop iconoclasts that might be a little too plastic

>We ALL know what befalls the followers of satan.
Yeah, they become the government of the United Homeland of Amerika

charlotte

lol…the website is also called “disinformation”…you’re not particularly bright, are you?

sloth

the title is misleading, ten years of decriminalization is different than ten years of legalization.

WTFMFWOMG

Law enforcement and prisons are a BUSINESS in the US. They tell us, “Drug use will skyrocket,” but what they mean is, “We’ll go out of business!” Drugs like cannabis will NEVER be legalized in the US. Also, look up the money-laundering aspect. US banks get all the money from the illegal drug business. Something like two percent actually goes back to the drug producing countries. Legalize drugs? What have you been smoking?

Portugal never legalized drugs. Saying that they did is at best a mistake, at worst outright dishonest. Seeing how the actual news article says “decriminalize” in it’s title I’m going with outright dishonest.